


It's Not Me, It's....

by dedicatedfollower467



Series: Time has Brought Your Heart to Me [4]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Asexual Doctor (Doctor Who), Asexuality, Bisexual Doctor, Classic Doctor Who References, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, M/M, Sex Repulsion, Sex Talk, Sexuality, The Vault (Doctor Who), Unhealthy Relationships, but once again you don't need to know Classic Who to get it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 09:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dedicatedfollower467/pseuds/dedicatedfollower467
Summary: "What if we did it?""Did what?""Had sex."





	It's Not Me, It's....

**Author's Note:**

> Okay this is where the ship factor of this series becomes undeniable.
> 
> This is theoretically another standalone fic that doesn't need Classic Who or other parts of the series for context. But there is some spoiler-y content for Classic Who Doctor/Master stuff in here.

“What if we did it?” Missy asked him through the speaker on the door of the Vault.

If the Doctor had been in his usual mood, he would have ignored her and kept walking away. If he’d been in a bad mood, he would have snapped something angry into the intercom and stalked off in a huff.

But today had been a good day. A couple of bright students had come up to him after his lecture and asked him for more detail on it, and they’d been quite good questions, too - a little basic in terms of subject matter but rather insightful for humans in the 21st century. So he was in a very good mood, and decided to bite.

“Did what?” he asked mildly, pressing the intercom.

“Had sex.”

A horrible shivering sensation swept through him - less like cold and more like millions of filthy insects had started crawling down his back. The hairs on the back of his neck were suddenly raised and tingling.

“Why would we do that?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice mild.

“Doctor,” she said. She was on the other side of the door, totally blocked from view, and yet he could almost see her eyes staring at him in accusation. For half a moment he was sure he _was_ seeing them, after all - Missy could be telepathically projecting.

“I know you’re in love with me,” Missy continued. “What if we just had sex. Maybe that could get it finally out of your system.”

“No, Missy,” he said. “I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he turned to walk away.

“Why _not_.”

It was a little petulant, a little petty and whinging, and not normally a phrase he would take seriously. But underneath the performative ridiculousness, there was a hint of real hurt. There was just the slightest tremble in Missy’s voice that said that he’d somehow struck a nerve.

She deserved an answer. After all this time, he owed her that.

He went back to the Vault door and pressed the intercom again. “I don’t want to have sex with anyone,” he told her. He didn’t know whether he came off as sincere or flippant or cruel these days - in this body it seemed they were all one and the same tone of voice. “It’s not you, Missy. It’s never been you.”

The silence on the other end of the intercom was a little too long. But he waited. She wasn’t the kind to let him have the last word - not about a subject like this.

Finally, the intercom buzzed again. “Will you come in?” she asked. There was nothing in her tone of voice that betrayed what she was thinking.

The Doctor sighed and opened the door.

Missy was waiting for him on the other side, her usual made-up self - hair perfectly styled, lipstick micrometer-perfect, her dark lashes looking sultry without trying. Her face was totally neutral.

And what a sight he looked in comparison to her, he knew - old jeans, a band t-shirt, a half-worn-away zipper hoodie and an old-fashioned velvet coat. Without conscious thought his hands gravitated immediately to the pockets of his coat and he stood there silently as the door closed.

“I thought it was because I was a man,” Missy said, almost a whisper. “I thought, maybe this time around...”

Jamie McCrimmon flashed into his mind, followed by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and then a memory of Rory Pond in full Roman battle regalia. “No, I was interested in men, too,” he said, still standing on the other side of the room. “And… I was interested in you. It took me a long time to work it out, but I was.”

Missy sat down very primly on one of the chairs he’d provided for her and she gazed into the middle distance. “So the problem is that I’m female now. It’s too big a change.”

The Doctor sighed in frustration. “I already told you, _it’s not you_ ,” he said. “It’s, I’m not -- this body really, _really_ doesn’t like to be touched.”

Her eyes flicked to him and then away again. “You say that as if some other body would have let me touch you,” she said. “But you’ve never really wanted me. Not before, and not now.”

“Oh, let’s talk about bodies and wanting, shall we?” he said. “Last time we met, you wanted to kill me. I would have done anything for you, and the only things you ever did were either run away or tie me to a chair and _torture_ my friends and me for an entire year. That time, it was _you_ who didn’t want _me,_ not the other way around.

“We hardly ever even saw each other in the Time War, but even if we had it would have been no good because I wasn’t the Doctor then. My body didn’t want you then because that body was practically incapable of expressing love or affection, so it didn’t matter.

“Before that you explicitly wanted to kill me, and my Tardis, and take all the regeneration energy for yourself. I would have been happy to love you then - that eighth body was an affectionate sort who wanted that kind of thing more than I think I ever have before or since.

“Every time, _every_ time, Missy, that we’ve had the chance, you’ve either wanted nothing to do with me, or I’ve wanted nothing like that to do with _anybody_. And when I’m actually willing, you’re not there. And whenever you’re willing I’ve been… unreceptive. It’s not you this time, Missy, but it sure as hell _has_ been you in the past!”

A shattering silence filled the Vault.

Then Missy whispered. “Not _every_ time.”

“No.” He swallowed, remembering. “Not every time. But close enough.”

Missy looked down at her hands, folded in her lap, and the Doctor swayed just inside the threshold of the Vault, unsure of what to do now.

“I’m sorry,” he offered, knowing it couldn’t possibly make up for anything.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said, still not looking at him.

The silence stretched again, to the point of awkwardness. He turned to leave, and then hesitated for an instant on the threshold.

“It’s not that I don’t love you,” he said, unable to look at her. “I do. I’ve loved you despite everything, through every incarnation - I never stopped loving you. But I can’t do sex. Not now. Not in this body.”

As he left the Vault, he just barely caught the words on the edge of his hearing.

“There’s no guarantee either of us will get another chance at this.”

He bowed his head and went.

**Author's Note:**

> So there's a prequel part to this series which I'm considering posting soon... if folks are interested I'd like to hear people's opinions on whether I should re-order the series so that it's in chronological order, or if I should keep them in the order I post them in?


End file.
